US releases bin Laden videos

Newly released videos show Osama bin Laden watching himself on television and rehearsing for terrorist videos, revealing that even from the walled confines of his Pakistani hideout he remained a media maestro who was eager to craft his own image for the cameras.

The videos, released by US intelligence officials Saturday, were offered as further proof that Navy SEALs killed the world's most wanted terrorist this week. But they also served to show bin Laden as vain, someone obsessed with his portrayal by the world's media.

Bin Laden watching himself on TV (Photo: Reuters)

One of the movies shows bin Laden, his unkempt beard streaked in gray, sitting on the floor, wrapped in a brown blanket and holding a remote control. He flipped back and forth between what appears to be live news coverage of himself. The old, small television was perched on top of a desk with a large tangle of electrical wires running to a nearby control box.

In another, he has apparently dyed and neatly trimmed his beard for the filming of a propaganda video. The video, which the US released without sound, was titled ""Message to the American People" and was believed to be made sometime last fall, a senior intelligence official said during a briefing for reporters, on condition that his name not be used.

The videos were seized from bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Officials said the clips shown to reporters were just part of the largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever collected. The evidence seized during the raid also includes phone numbers and documents that officials hope will help break the back of the organization behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

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